1. Field of the Invention
The objective of this invention is to provide a method for command, planning, and management that minimizes the ability of an enemy to gain insight into the command, control, planning, and/or management process yet still allows multiple units to coordinate their actions with substantially reduced communication. (A unit is a single device, robot, cyborg, algorithm, vehicle, person, or process, or a tightly grouped system of devices, robots, cyborgs, algorithms, vehicles, people, or processes.) This approach reduces predictability from the competitor's standpoint while maintaining predictability among friendly units. Frequent exchanges of information are not required, resulting in less communication than standard methods for coordinating assets. This invention was designed with the following goals in mind.                To ensure that plans, commands, and actions are unpredictable        To coordinate friendly forces while denying the opponent capability to predict or to anticipate the actions of the friendly forces        To allow real-time, distributed contingency handling with only brief communication required to describe the changing environment with a-priori identification of potential contingencies not required.        To increases an opponent's FOG OF WAR, increasing uncertainty and leading to wrong decisions        To force the opponent into a reactive state to destabilize his Observe-Orient-Decide-Act (OODA) loop [Orr, 1983]        To improve competitive effectiveness by enhancing force-concentration operations and increasing competitive momentum, thus enabling victory when numerically outnumbered        To minimize problems of network-centric operations, frequent communication and vulnerability to loss of communication        
This invention is applicable to the fields of management, command, control, and planning. It has specific applications to military mission planning and to autonomous vehicles. Robots, such as Uninhabited Combat Aerial Vehicles (UCAV), Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USV), Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (UUV), Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGV), Unmanned Space Craft (USC), microbots, or nanobots can maximize the benefit of this approach by using advanced computing capabilities. Any activity that includes processes that must be protected from competitive espionage will benefit.
The invention is not an exercise in conventional cryptography. It is not an invention to protect information, such as commands, controls, or plans, after they have been determined. Rather, it is an invention to prevent a competitor or an opponent from predicting or anticipating the commands, controls, and/or plans that will be produced (or that were produced) by a process, algorithm, or device. This makes the invention completely different from standard applications of cryptography.
2. Description of Related Prior Art
While organizations have been trying to hide their actions and motives from enemies for millennia [Sun Szu—“All war is deception.”], only in the age of the computer has it become possible to fully exploit the methods described in this application. The word cryptic in the term Cryptic Command, Control, Planning, and Management refers to the intention to make the behavior of a controlled device unpredictable, thus hiding the intentions of the manager, commander, the controller, or the planner. (The controlled device can refer to a robot, a human, or a group of humans and/or robots.)
Cryptic Command, Control, Planning, and Management makes a system unpredictable by incorporating appropriate pseudo-randomness into a management, command, control, or planning strategy. Yet simultaneously, the controlled device is predictable to its comrades. Any friendly system can predict the controlled device's behavior when it has access to the process whereby this pseudorandom strategy is generated. Unfriendly systems cannot predict the system's behavior well because they are not given access to the same information.
This invention has significant degrading effects on any predictive management, command, control, or planning behavior exhibited by unfriendly systems. In the presence of significant uncertainty, a prediction can be very wrong. A wrong prediction will usually lead to an improper response. Actions based upon predictions produce worse results than reactive actions if the uncertainty is large enough. This forces an opponent into reactive behaviors rather than proactive behaviors. Since the opponent is denied the benefits of prediction, he cannot use prediction to compensate for his own process delays.
The coordination of friendly forces is robust to communications failures because it requires little or no communication. The U.S. military is moving to a “network-centric” philosophy of operation that requires a massive communications network. It is a good assumption that this network will come under attack and parts will fail. Our invention provides good coordination even when communications degrade.
Predictability of unmanned systems is an issue that has been ignored by the U.S. Government during the development of command and control architectures for unmanned vehicles. These architectures are evolving standards that will eventually encompass most of the vehicles produced for the U.S. Government [Huang, 2003][JAUS Compliance Specification, 2004][JAUS Inter-Subsystem Compliance Recommendation, 2004][JAUS Domain Model, 2004][JAUS Strategic Plan, 2003][JUSC2, 2004][NATO STANAG 4586][Portmann, Cooper, Norton, Newborn, 2003][Summey, Rodriguez, DeMartino, Portmann, Moritz, 2001][Wade, 2003][Portmann, 2004][Burke, 2003][Boutelle, 2003][Riggs, 2003a][Riggs, 2003b]. These documents do not address predictability.
Game theorists have considered uncertainty and predictability in a variety of gaming problems [Dresher, Melvin, 1981]. Their focus has been on forming winning strategies and tactics in the presence of the player's uncertainty without purposely attempting to increase the opponent's uncertainty. Uncertainty has been long considered during the modeling of combat operations. Statistical methods have been applied to develop useful models in the face of battlefield uncertainty [Johnson, Isensee, and Allison, 1995][Ancker, 1995][Yang and Gafarian, 1995][Almeida, Gaver, and Jacobs, 1995] (though deterministic models of combat are still used extensively by warfare analysts [Anderson, 1995] [Anderson and Miercort, 1995][Bitters, 1995][Jaiswal and Nagbhushana, 1995]). These inventions are limited to making statistical predictions of outcomes or to make assessments of the efficacy of a particular force mix or of a particular combat tactic or strategy.
Automated methods have been developed for command, control, and planning [Bartoff, 1999][Rowe and Lewis, 1989][Zabarankin, Uryasev, and Pardalos, 2000][Proceedings of the AIAA Guidance, Navigation, and Control Conference, 2003]. Some of these methods consider uncertainty and some methods attempt to minimize detectability, but no method attempts to achieve unpredictability from the point of view of an opponent. For example, some methods plan paths for aircraft such that the aircraft present minimal aspect to a radar emitter. In this way, the planners minimize detectability. However, the paths can be predicted if the enemy knows enough.
Command, control, planning, and management processes are traditionally non-cryptic. Unlike a cryptic process, they exhibit the characteristics of (relative) simplicity and determinism. Simplicity is built into a system because of developmental constraints and/or a lack of information. Complexity might be required to deal with all possibilities, but the developers build a process that has just enough complexity to solve the most important problems that might arise. Simplifications are also made because some information required to make the process more capable do not exist or are difficult to obtain. These simplifications make a process more vulnerable to prediction. The ease of prediction is an increasing function of the processes simplicity. The very fact that the process ignores information that is difficult to obtain allows the opponent to ignore the information as well.
Determinism is the degree to which the current state of a process can be predicted from past inputs and outputs. Those people or elements involved in a deterministic process follow a strict set of rules or formulae for arriving at decisions or behaviors. This characteristic is useful because the process can be analyzed by its developers and certain theoretical assurances can be made. Also, a deterministic process is easier to control and to understand by the individuals further up the management or command hierarchy. A non-deterministic process, on the other hand, involves people or elements who make decisions based upon intuition, whim, random chance, or inputs that are unobservable to an opponent. A process that is highly deterministic is also highly predictable if the opponent ascertains or approximates the rules or formulae that govern the production of the process outputs. A non-deterministic process is not easily predicted because the opponent cannot access the intuition, whims, random inputs, or unobservable information that influence the states of the process.
Autonomous processes operate according to deterministic algorithms of constrained complexity. These machines are more vulnerable to the modeling and prediction of an opponent than a human-involved process or vehicle. (But even manned processes can be lured into highly predictable behavior by improper use of predictable planning tools.) Given substantially similar input from an environment, a typical autonomous controller or planner will produce substantially the same behavior. Optimal controllers and planners are the worst in this respect because an opponent does not require any knowledge of the planning process to predict the plans that are produced. This is because an optimal plan is uniquely defined by the inputs to the planner, the constraints of the process, and by the cost function, without regard to the method used to find the minimizing strategy. In most cases, there is only one optimal plan that minimizes a cost function subject to the constraints on the process and subject to a particular set of environmental inputs/conditions. Therefore, if the opponent understands the goals of the people who designed the process or who are using the process, the constraints of the process, and the environmental conditions, the opponent can deduce the plan.
While predictability may seem like a benefit from the point of view of a controls engineer or an industrial planner, it is a grave disability in a competitive environment such as a battlefield. For example, in the movie ‘Patton’ where George C. Scott, playing U.S. Army General Patton, excitedly exclaims “Rommel, you magnificent b&$#&%@, I read your book!” when confronted with the actions of General Rommel's Afrika Korps. Because Rommel followed the recommendations of his own book so closely, his battle plan was anticipated by Patton.
Science fiction writers have identified the rigidity of deterministic logic as a weakness of robots. These imaginary robots often lose conflicts with humans because their actions are predictable. The BBC television show ‘Dr. Who’ presented an episode where two robotic armies were locked in an endless battle. The actions of each side were so optimal as to be precisely predicted by the other side. This resulted in an endless series of moves, countermoves, and counter-counter moves. The war ended in victory for one side only when the time traveling hero introduced randomness into their logic. However, no mention was made of maintaining predictability between the members of that side.
Lawyers have always kept ‘books’ on their opposing counsels [Halpern, 2004]. In the modem era, these ‘books’ have grown into considerable databases that are maintained by the claims community. A good ‘book’ provides insight into strategy that a lawyer will use in the courtroom and during settlement negotiations. Anticipating a lawyer's strategy can save his opponent significant money in settlement or make the difference between winning and losing at trial. However, there is the opportunity for coordinating counsels to communicate adequately; therefore a method such as this invention has never been invented by stake-holders in this ‘industry.’
This invention is different from conventional cryptography. To date, cryptography has been limited to protecting information after its generation, usually during its transmittal from a source to a receiver. It does nothing to prevent a competitor from predicting the information that was sent or that will be sent. If the competitor can predict or anticipate the information that is generated by a process, algorithm, or device, he will not need to decrypt the messages. This is an important defect of conventional cryptography. It does no good to encrypt information if the information generating process is sufficiently transparent that the competitor can predict the output of the process.
This deficiency of cryptography is offset somewhat be using various methods of security, thereby preventing the opponent from gaining insight into the information generating process. Such methods include guards, classification guides, secure areas, security boundaries, etc. These methods are effective to some degree but they are vulnerable to espionage. Furthermore, a competitor does not necessarily require knowledge of how a process generates information. If a sufficient set of examples of the resultant information can be intercepted, the competitor can generate a model of the process. This model allows the competitor to predict or to anticipate the information, behaviors, orders, controls, or plans produced by the organizational process, cyborg, robot, or algorithm.
Related Patents
    U.S. Pat. No. 6,646,588 “Midair collision avoidance system”, Nov. 11, 2003            The invention described in the patent listed below addresses an important planning problem, determining an aircraft flight path to avoid a potential collision. Like all planning methods, it includes a method for mapping from numbers that describe the environment to planned behaviors. Unlike this method, our invention assumes potential competition and increases the unpredictability in the system from a competitor's point of view.            U.S. Pat. No. 6,604,044 “Method for generating conflict resolutions for air traffic control of free flight operations”, Aug. 5, 2003            This invention is applicable to the same problem as the invention of 6,646,588. It uses prediction to determine a proper response to a conflict between aircraft. Unlike our invention, it makes the assumption that all aircraft are operating with the same goal: avoiding collisions. Unlike this method, our invention assumes potential competition and increases the unpredictability in the system from the competitor's point of view.            U.S. Pat. No. 6,640,204 “Method and system for using cooperative game theory to resolve statistical joint effects”, Oct. 28, 2003            This patent describes an approach to playing a competitive game. It describes the cooperation of friendly players but does not address the confusion of opponents. Unlike this method, our invention increases the unpredictability in the system from a competitor's point of view.            U.S. Pat. No. 6,579,175 “Game system for occupying a team position in a game area disposed between a plurality of teams”, Jun. 17, 2003            This patent describes a method for solving a gaming problem. Like our invention, it assumes a competitive environment and includes a method for mapping from numbers that describe the environment to planned behaviors. It requires frequent communication to maintain the coordination of the friendly players. Unlike this method, our invention confuses the competitors by increasing the apparent unpredictability in the system.            U.S. Pat. No. 5,191,341 “System for sea navigation or traffic control/assistance”, Mar. 2, 1993            This patent describes a method for coordinating the motions of a plurality of ships by mapping known state information to heading and speed commands. Unlike our invention, frequent communication is required to maintain this coordination. Unlike our invention, competition is not addressed.            U.S. Pat. No. 5,504,686 “Mission planning costing surface”, Apr. 2, 1996            This patent describes a method to determine covert flight paths for an aircraft from a space of flyable paths. We have included this reference to distinguish between unpredictability and undetectability. By reducing detectability of the aircraft to radar, this method might lead to the confusion of an opponent, but not if the opponent is capable of predicting the location of the aircraft from an initial observation. This invention does not include any provision for making an aircraft's path unpredictable. If the opponent has some information concerning the aircraft, the mission, and the planning algorithm then prediction of the aircraft's location becomes possible and the opponent will not be surprised. This predictability is typical of all mission planning methods known to the applicant. Our invention addresses the predictability issue by incorporating pseudorandom behaviors.            U.S. Pat. No. 4,868,755 “Expert vehicle control system”, Sep. 19, 1989            This patent addresses mission planning and control. Unlike this invention, our invention addresses a competitive environment and reduces the predictability of the process with respect to the competitors.            U.S. Pat. No. 6,505,119 “Control unit and mission planning station for a manned paragliding system”, Jan. 7, 2003            This patent describes control and mission planning for a para-glider. Unlike this invention, our invention addresses a competitive environment and reduces the predictability of the process with respect to the competitors.            U.S. Pat. No. 6,122,572 “Autonomous command and control unit for mobile platform”, Sep. 19, 2000            This patent describes a method for planning a mission. Unlike this invention, our method addresses a competitive environment and reduces the predictability of the process with respect to the competitors.            U.S. Pat. No. 6,532,454 “Stable adaptive control using critic designs”, Mar. 11, 2003    U.S. Pat. No. 6,581,048 “3-brain architecture for an intelligent decision and control system”, Jun. 17, 2003    U.S. Pat. No. 6,453,308 “Non-linear dynamic predictive device”, Sep. 17, 2002    U.S. Pat. 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Unlike these methods, our invention makes a controller less predictable from the point of view of the competitors yet allows coordination of multiple friendly devices.            U.S. Pat. No. 6,373,984 “System and Method for Detecting Patterns or Objects in a Digital Image”, J. Gouge and S. Gouge, Apr. 16, 2002    U.S. Pat. No. 6,067,371 “Method and System for Non-Invasive Temperature Mapping of Tissue”, J. Gouge, et. al. May 23, 2000    U.S. Pat. No. 5,267,328 “Method for Selecting Distinctive Pattern Information from a Pixel Generated Image”, J. Gouge, Nov. 30, 1993, (European patent No. 0483299 (12 countries), German patent No. 69129690.1-08, International patent application No. PCT/US91/00441, Australian patent application No. 74963/91)    U.S. Pat. No. 5,224,175 “Method for Analyzing a Body Tissue Ultrasound Image”, J. Gouge, June 1993, (European Patent Application No. 91909714.7, International Patent Application No. PCT/US91/03083).    U.S. Pat. No. 5,040,225 “Image Analysis Method”, J. Gouge, August, 1991            These patents clearly discriminate between deterministic, random, and pseudorandom processes. However, none of these patented technologies are methods for purposefully making a process, algorithm, or device unpredictable.            U.S. Pat. No. 6,782,475 “Method and Apparatus for Conveying a Private Message to Selected Members”, Terance Sumner, Aug. 24, 2004    U.S. Pat. No. 6,782,473 “Network Encryption System”, Minn Soo Park, Aug. 24, 2004    U.S. Pat. No. 6,782,103 “Cryptographic Key Management”, R. D. Arthan, A. J. Robinson and T. A. Parker, Aug., 24, 2004    U.S. Pat. No. 6,757,699 “Method and System for Fragmenting and Reconstituting Data”, Lowry and Douglas, Jun. 29, 2004            These patents are typical of those that refer to encryption of data. They protect data via a keyed process. 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